Before the World Cup Final, Team India is monitoring 22 yards again

Ahmedabad: During the ICC Cricket World Cup, Lehra do... Sarkashi ka parcham lehra do, the song sung by Arijit Singh and Pritam Chakraborty for the film 83’, has been at the top of the chart in the stadium's sound system in team India matches. The host is just one match away from making this inspiring song into a reality. India and Australia will face each other in the final on Sunday. 

Though most of the Indian players were resting before the final at the team hotel, the coaching staff spent almost 25 minutes monitoring the preparation of the grassless pitch on Friday. They all interacted with them and asked some questions from the ground staff.

Head coach Rahul Dravid, batting coach Vikram Rathour, and fielding coach T Dilip reached Narendra Modi Stadium around 3 PM. Treo spoke to the ground staff at length. During their interaction, one of the senior ground staff members was explaining something to them.

Before the first semifinal against New Zealand in Mumbai, some media reports claimed that the BCCI had shifted the pitch meant for the first semifinal match after team India asked for it and ignored ICC pitch expert Andy Atkinson's instructions.

The British paper Daily Mail also claimed in the reports that Atkinson had recommended pitch number five for the final, but his advice was ignored again and pitch number was prepared for the World Cup final.

After the report was published in the Daily Mail, the ICC released the statement that "changes to planned pitch rotations are common towards the end of an event of this length and have already happened a couple of times. This change was made at the recommendation of the venue curator in conjunction with our host. The ICC independent pitch consultant was apprised of the change and has no reason to believe the pitch won’t play well.

“We are doing much on the pitch, " one of the ground staff told NewsDrum. “This is not last-minute preparation. Today we just rolled that pitch after two sessions of watering.”

The methods adopted by the ground staff for pitch preparation on Friday indicate that this match is likely to be a high-scoring match.

After Australia’s win against South Africa in the second semifinal at Kolkata Pacer, Josh Hazlewood told Cricket.com.au, "We played England at Ahmedabad, and the wicket was pretty good without being an absolute flat track, so I expect probably something similar to that.".

It was an optional practice session for Team India on Friday. Only Captain Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, Ishan Kishan, R. Aswin, and Prasidh Krishna came for a practice session.